Tag: motherland

Thoughts on Netflix’s Physical: Asia

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[Spoilers inevitable]

When I saw that Netflix’s Physical: 100 franchise has branched off into Physical: Asia, I thought that this was an interesting twist on the series, especially if it were going to be solely team-based and never branched off into individual competition.  The nationalistic lean of categorizing competitors based on country seemed like a real intriguing way to be more than just a bunch of individuals trying to outdo one another, for the goal of being the Top-1 of Physical.

After watching Physical: Asia, I have to say that I found it to be completely enjoyable, and I tip my cap to the show for creating a series and format that I found to be captivating and often eliciting tension and excitement for me as a viewer, while also being wholesome and applause-worthy in a manner that’s really basically only possible in shows produced outside of America.

It’s not because Korea won the whole thing, although that does please me, in spite of the obvious bias accusations that I’m sure I’ll touch on later, but as a whole, the show was exciting, compelling, seldom dull, and kept me on the edge of my seat more often than being able to sit there and simply relax while watching.

Frankly, I thought Korea had no chance of winning, solely based on the hypothesis that the showrunners wouldn’t want to be accused of favoritism, and find some convoluted manner to eliminate them while not making them appear weak.  But at the same time, seeing as how Japan was also a contending nation, I figured they had no shot at winning either, because fuck if a Korean-produced competitive television show would allow Japan to walk away victorious, but more on Japan a little later.

What was the most refreshing part about the show, to me, is basically the same reason why my wife enjoys The Great British Baking Show – in spite of the competition, everyone is still cool to each other, and there’s a lot of sportsmanship and general respect for one another.  Even between the Koreans and Japanese athletes, there’s not any genuine hostility beyond the obvious notion that when it comes down to it, neither of them wants to yield to the other.  But otherwise, everyone is all about high-fives, hugs and fist-bumps when they’re not actively trying to eliminate others, and the respect and sportsmanship among all competitors is refreshing to watch, especially as Americans who are so engrained in seeing absolute shitheads and the filth of the earth competing in reality television because controversy creates cash.

However, in spite of the praise I have for the show overall, I did think that there was some fishiness to the format, that I’m sure people on reddit and other fan discussion forums have probably pointed out:

Continue reading “Thoughts on Netflix’s Physical: Asia” →

Dad Brog (#158): I’m not ready for anything prefaced by “adult”

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m in the middle of one of those weekends where I’ve sparsely had any time for myself; even more so than usual.  The kids are still in this weird adjustment period of daylight savings as well as simply adapting to their general schedules, and this particular morning, they were up at 7 am, not long after I had gotten up to begin my day, and I was completely unprepared as far as having breakfast ready, but it didn’t matter that my kids were ready to begin their day.

Instead of a 60-90 minute quiet time reprieve in the middle of the day, this was a day in which there were two concurrent birthday parties happening at the same time, so mythical wife and I decided to divide and conquer and take each kid to a different party, in different parts of town.  I watched #2 plow through three slices of pizza, a ridiculously gargantuan slice of cake, and a bowl of dipping dots, all while playing a bunch of really shitty games at Chuck-E-Cheese where kids are lucky to get maybe 15 seconds of game time before the credits expire and I can’t imagine paying actual money for gaming time with such absurdly unfavorable math, and I felt fortunate to be on a timed party free-play.

Needless to say, with the kids down, instead of relaxing, I found myself playing catch-up on things that I didn’t get to do on a typical Saturday, which meant hopping on the treadmill to get some exercise, while simultaneously doing my daily Duolingo that I typically prefer to do early in the morning before everyone else is really up.  And then I decided to go run some errands while some stores were still open, all for the sake of not having to them during Sunday, when I would inevitably have to have a kid in tow while trying to do them, and by the time I’m sitting here it’s past ten, and I don’t feel like I have adequate time to really watch something from my endless list of crap that I want to watch, so I bring myself to sit here to write in my brog that nobody knows exists.

But hey, at least I got to go be on top of the drop of Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus, and watched the first two episodes on Friday night, and the show was as good as I would have hoped it would be, so that’s something remotely positive amidst feeling buried by life and looking out the metaphorical window of the world to see the United States completely at peace with itself forcibly starving its own citizens but this post wasn’t meant to be political as much as I just wanted to take that dig in lieu of making a dedicated post about how fucked America is.

However, getting to the point of this post, the biggest occurrence to happen over this weekend was undoubtedly the fact that #1 lost her first tooth, and I’m just not ready for this at all.  Because when it comes to teeth, most everyone knows that the vernacular for them are baby teeth, and when they fall out, they’re supplanted by your adult teeth, and I am so not fucking ready to hear the word “adult” at all, associated with my five-year old child.

It’s crazy, it was just like a few weeks ago in which #1 pointed out to mythical wife and I that she had a wiggly tooth, and we were both having the same reaction about how, wtf has all this time flown by to where our kid is now having her baby teeth starting to fall out.  A cursory internet search confirms that five is a fairly common age for the first teeth to begin falling out, and I have memories of my own childhood of when I had my first loose tooth, where my dad tied a piece of floss around it before yanking it out, and the vague memory of feeling like I’d been punched in the mouth, with a similar result of there being a lot of blood.

But as unfortunate as it was that I couldn’t be there when it happened, there wasn’t really much blood when #1’s first tooth came out.  I had literally just taken her to the dentist just says prior, and I saw the X-rays showing the adult teeth rapidly growing underneath and how to anticipate the first tooth to come out soon, and it was still a harrowing moment seeing those photographs of all these adult teeth starting to grow beneath the baby ones, and again I’m struggling to hear the word adult at all when it comes to my kid, because she’s still just five freaking years old.

Inevitably, like the Korean blood in her body demands, questions about the Tooth Fairy and the whole concept of getting money for teeth came up pretty immediately, and now I’ve got to start ponying up cash to put under her pillow and hope to not wake her along the way.  Plus there’s the whole question of just how much money to give for a tooth; when I was a kid, it was $2 a tooth, but my parents quashed the whole mythos of the Tooth Fairy real quick and just gave me cashmoney on the spot after an extraction.

It’s going to be a tricky next few years, given the fact that I have two kids of close age who will be inevitably be periodically dropping teef throughout the next 8-9 years, and me having to keep up with needing adequate cash to fund all these damn teef and keep up with inflation.

But heaven help me that there are anything at all in my little girls’ bodies that are considered adult, even if they’re pretty much right on schedule when it comes to the first teeth falling out.  They’re always going to be babies to me.

Korea vs. Everybody: Rosé at the VMAs

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not entirely sure why this came across my feeds, but it definitely did the trick of triggering my KvE radar and got the gears of wanting to write about it spinning pretty quickly.

TL;DR, Korean pop star Rosé, most notably known for being a member of BLACKPINK, wins MTV Video Music Award for Song of the Year, for APT, her solo track collaboration with Bruno Mars – and the celebrity circle jerk around her goes mild.  Meanwhile, Ariana Grande wins Best Pop Song and everyone in the crowd reacts like new Jordans have been dropped in the hood.

I understand that in the grand spectrum of western celebrity, Rosé, BLACKPINK and K-pop in general aren’t entitled to the adulation that of those already entrenched in American culture, and when it comes down to it, Koreans aren’t that well known among their peers at an American event.  If this kind of event were held in Seoul, people would go gonzo over Rosé’s award, but they’d also probably go ballistic over all the Americans too because if there’s one obnoxious thing about Korean culture is that they’re so enamored and thirsty for American validation, that they kowtow fairly quickly, even when it’s so not deserved.

But what chapped my ass the most was Rosé’s interaction with Daniel Ramos, one of the co-directors of the video.  Rosé tried to initiate some sort of celebratory hug/embrace after winning fucking Song of the Year, and man denied her faster than a woman would shoot down an incel at a bar.

Yes, nobody is required to return an interaction if they don’t want to, but like bruh, Rosé just won you a Song of the Year award, and he brushing her off like there was lettuce on his Subway when he specifically asked for none.

But when Ariana Grande wins, at least what I’d say is a lesser award, everyone in the audience gets out of their seats and is slapping fives and hugs and basically acting like they just witnessed Mac McClung’s latest 10/10 dunk at the dunk contest.

I have no qualms with Ariana Grande, frankly I think she’s quite talented and has a powerful voice that belts out some decent music relatively, but I’m just trying to understand why there’s that much disparity in respect in reaction between two talented pop stars other than nationality.

Fuck it, it’s racism; even if it’s not the malicious brand of it.  It’s typical disrespect for Koreans and what Koreans are capable of.  Fuckin white folks and their cliques of whitewashed star fuckers all disrespecting Rosé and denying her even the most basic of reciprocal respect in her moment of victory.  I bet if Bruno Mars were with her, shit would’ve been way the fuck different.

Would love to have a time machine to be able to tell her that everyone in that venue are a bunch of busters that aren’t worth her validation, and that she should take that VMA award and drop it in the trash like Alundra Blayze and then go back to the Motherland where her talents would be recognized and respected.

It’s shit like this that makes me think the words Korea vs. Everybody, and I feel like I should take it more seriously and maybe use that as my basis for putting my stamp on the internet.

Good intentions, still kind of racist

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I saw this photograph of the Atlanta Falcons’ placekicker Koo Younghoe posing up with new Braves’ scrap-bin pickup Kim Ha-Seong where they did/were coerced into a jersey swap, my first reaction was that of a wince.

I understand what was going on, and I imagine both Koo and Kim were smart enough to just go with it for the sake of whitey and the rest of America; and as the title of this post says, I think most Koreans would probably get that the intentions of this obviously orchestrated connection were good, it still gives off a sense of ignorant microaggression, in my personal opinion.

It’s like there’s absolutely no chance that Koo Younghoe was planned in advance to happen to be at ScumTrust Truist Park on this particular day, even if the NFL season was right on the precipice of beginning.  If the Braves really wanted to tie into the start of the Falcons’ season, undoubtedly they would’ve gone after Michael Penix or any of their more popular skill position players, and not the placekicker, no matter how talented and generally likeable that Koo actually is. 

The choice to invite Koo to the ballpark stinks of white people exhibitionism, like when white people are trying to integrate a black person, gay person, or any other individual who classifies as not-straight white people, they go out of their way to dig out any other member of said demographic to help introduce them into the collective.  And I’m going to give benefit of the doubt that both Koo and Kim were aware of what was going on, but like I said, they’re probably smart enough to just go with it, as not to jeopardize their own careers by calling out bullshit when they see it.

I’d wager that Koo and Kim were amenable to each other during this forced interaction, and maybe they did become quick acquaintances from the connection.  Koo probably reinforced the likely things the white people on the Braves told Kim about life in Atlanta, about how Koreans are plentiful here, mostly the students around Georgia Tech, as well as Gwinnett County as a whole, and probably some recommendations on where to get some decent Korean food should Kim be jonesing for the flavors of the motherland.

But the thing is, Kim was born and raised in Korea, played ball in the KBO, and came to America barely five years ago.  Koo was born in Korea, but immigrated to America when he was 12; he went to high school, college and embarked on his NFL career all in America, and in spite of his origin, man has had plenty of time to more or less become a true American in terms of personality and quality of life. 

They really couldn’t be more different beyond their nationality of origin and the fact that they’re both professional athletes.  But that seemed to be good enough for the Braves to go out and invite Koo over to the ballpark to meet up with Kim, because, they’re both Korean, they probably already know each other, and their grandfathers probably had to have served together in the Korean War or some other bullshit assumption.

If the Braves were actually smart, they’d basically have just pointed Kim Ha-Seong straight to Jurickson Profar, since they were already familiar with each other, having been teammates on the Padres.  And they were tight enough to where they referred to themselves as Rush Hour, even as horribly racist as that name would be for a Korean and a black-skinned Venezuelan to compare themselves to Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, it’s the kind of unity that only comes from actual friendships.

I mean, maybe they did, and they’d already reunited, but they still wanted to introduce Kim to another Korean Atlanta professional athlete, just to show him that more of you chinks are here playing professional sports here after all.

Either way, as well-intentioned as the whole thing was, I’mma just go ahead and declare the thing, racist.  Not necessarily a malicious racist, but still racist all the same.

They wouldn’t do this with a new Dominican pickup, or a black pickup.  But seeing as how Kim is the first Korean Braves player since Jung Bong, they may as well be back to square one with interacting with Korean culture.  I definitely hope Kim stays, because I’ve been following his journey since he posted out of the KBO and made his way to MLB where he was absolutely excellent in his first few years with the Padres, and I genuinely feel the Braves got an absolute steal of a gem in their typical modus operandi of picking through other teams’ scraps, and I think both the Padres and the Rays gave up on him too preemptively, mostly on account of typical Korean disrespect, but I’m hoping he finds success in Atlanta and the Braves can actually have a Korean player that hangs around for more than a split second.

Hopefully, microaggressions like forcing Koreans to interact don’t shy his opinion too much, and he forces Braves Country to realize who the fuck he is, and is a part of the hopeful 2026 re-do of this cesspool of a 2025 season.

Mickey 17 and the Korean curse of producing for The West

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of the things I watched during my staycation was Mickey 17, for really no other reason than it was directed by Bong Joon-ho. Parasite was truly a best picture, and I always exert a little more effort to support those from the Motherland, so I had high hopes for Mickey 17, being (I think) Bong’s return to the screens since Parasite.

When the film finally ended, I was left with this disappointed feeling, and worst of all, the feeling that I had wasted my precious time.  At 2:20, it’s what I would classify as “a long movie” and if I’m going to sink that much time into something, I’d hope it’s got some redeeming quality.

Like lots of films, I felt the film prioritized its named stars, leaning on Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie and Mark Ruffalo to hard carry the film in spite of the weak story, but obviously a film is only as good as its story, and the cast of the Avengers would struggle to make Mickey 17 decent.

Mythical wife, being a K-pop snob, had begun distancing herself from BTS fandom, once BTS really came into the global mainstream, and wasn’t just a niche phenomenon within Korea and those who knew them from long ago.  She cited that their sound had immediately morphed into a more vanilla, cookie cutter sound, clearly catered to wider, global audiences instead of sticking with the formula that made them who they are.

Frankly, this is nothing out of the ordinary, nor was it remotely surprising to me, because Korea has been notorious for changing shit up in all facets of media when it comes to seeking validation from The West, most specifically from America.

Once anything starts to receive any praise or acclaim from The West, Koreans have shown a tendency to lean hard into it and try to squeeze out more validation, even if it means compromising the foundations of said things.

Music, food and in the case of Mickey 17, film are all fair game when it comes to this general practice, and in the vast majority of cases, it doesn’t result in as much success as they hope it will, and they’ve compromised their concepts and alienated those who were fans before the mainstream rub.

Take Squid Game S3 for example; the first season was brilliant from nearly start to finish.  It couldn’t escape all Korean tropes but frankly those tropes really are things that make Korean media, Korean.  But when S2/3 came, I still enjoyed it, but there were clearly ideas incorporated into it that were clearly influenced by their knowledge that The West, would be watching.

Top from K-pop group Big Bang as the colorful Thanos, spouting horribly broken Engrish every chance he could, the ending that basically had kicked the door down that they want to go Westward Ho.

But nothing was more evident that they’re seeking Western acceptance than the character Hyun-ju, which most casual Americans simply recalled as “the trans one.”  It’s changed a little for the better these days, but LGBTQ+ concepts are still considered taboo and not nearly as accepted as they are in America.  Although I had no problem and appreciated Hyun-ju’s inclusion in Squid Game, there’s no part of me that believes such would have ever happened if not for the influence of potential Western viewers.  In this case it’s a positive result, but I still chalk it up as a decision made to appease The West.

The reason Parasite was so good was that it was inherently a film for Koreans, telling Korean stories and describing Korean struggles. It showed the cultural differences in setting and appearances but at the core of it, it’s a relatable story that sucked audiences from all over the globe in and deserved all the praise and accolade and the Oscar it got.

Mickey 17 was clearly made for The West, with its  Hollywood cast, and evident copious budget.  The core story was an interesting concept that provokes discussion about ethics and morality, but to me, it was like asking Bong Joon-ho to direct Starship Troopers or something out of his element.  It would be like asking Francis Ford Coppola to direct Parasite or something completely different than his own background and expecting it to be not full of holes as the result of cultural unfamiliarity.

Needless to say, in spite of energetic and enthusiastic performances by Pattinson and Ruffalo most notably, they couldn’t rescue a weak story.  Halfway through the film, I started to glaze, and by the time the last quarter was around, I was already dicking around on my phone and half listening.  And by the time the credits started rolling, the seed for this post had already been planted.

I mean, it’s a nigh impossible task to hit a home run after winning an Oscar, so it’s no surprise that Mickey 17 wasn’t that great. But considering the heights that Parasite climbed to, it’s extra disappointing to see just how far down Mickey 17 fell to.

Must every successful Korean thing get white people’d?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[This post is about Squid Game S3, there will likely be spoiler-ey words]

However, since I write for basically zero people, it’s merely a formality that has no real meaning.

Anyway, mythical wife and I just wrapped up watching S3 and the supposed finale to Squid Game, and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about how the finale transpired and the events of the how it all wrapped up.  Fortunately for me, I managed to hold off on watching it for a few days and managed to not get spoiled along the way to which I am very grateful.

So, as far as S3 went, it was as well executed as I would have hoped it would be.  Frankly, the original season was great on its own, and I didn’t think it really needed to have a sequel season(s), but Netflix is rich as balls, money talks, and moar Squid Game we got.  Thankfully, the moar Squid Game was pretty decent as far as sequels go, and wasn’t just a shitty Ocean Twelve-like cash grab of a turd sequel, and although it wasn’t as flawless as the original was, and some Korean storytelling trope cracks did show, overall it was still well acted, visually compelling, and had a storyline that made sense for the most part.

Without giving too much away, one thing I found to be hilarious was when the VIPs showed up to the mysterious island of games, is just how poor the acting was from them.  It’s like Squid Game clearly is a global phenomenon that most any Hollywood A-lister would probably love to participate in, in a cameo capacity, and I imagine it wouldn’t be a difficult ask for any agent to get some known global stars to play the layup roles of the VIPs.

But instead, we get these no-name clown actors whose acting is terrible, and I can’t help that it was probably cast in such a way deliberately, so that the Korean showrunners could passively flex how great their Korean cast was compared to the scab foreign cast who couldn’t act their way out of a preschool play.

Anyway, as the final episode began winding down, I said to mythical wife, that I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the episode ended in an open-ended manner, because regardless of their association with Netflix, Korean television shows are notorious for always ending in open-ended manners, because they seem to always want to keep the door open for potential sequel seasons, spin-offs or moar content. 

No matter if this was supposed to be the final season of OG Squid Game, I wasn’t going to be surprised if the general plot was left with gaping holes for moar Squid Game to manifest in the future, because despite their massive steps forward culturally in some regards, Korean media can’t stop being so Korean in others.

[Okay, here come abject spoilers to those who might not have seen it]

Naturally, as all the arcs start wrapping up, there are massive hints that things aren’t going to be over when it comes to The Games, and the season wraps up with a teaser of a new, American, Recruiter character, played by none other than Cate Blanchett, goading some white bum in an alleyway in Los Angeles, in a game of all things, ddakji, leading to the obvious conclusion that Squid Games are most definitely not over, but are now beginning to take place internationally, most notably, America.

Mythical wife had already heard about news that there was going to be a Squid Game: America in the works, and I can’t say that I’m the least bit surprised, but at the same time, I’m also irritated that yet another successful Korean property is selling out for white people to white people all over it, and make their own variation of it.

It’s like Parasite, and the success and buzz of its rise to the top of the mountain couldn’t even cool off before news started swirling about how it was going to be remade by Americans, inevitably going to be cast with an entirely, for lack of a better phrase, deliberately forced woke DEI cast.

It’s like shows like Physical:100 and Culinary Class Wars and Street Food, that were so good in their original Korean iterations, but white people couldn’t just accept watching good television with subtitles on, so instead they just have all their shit remade for the comfort and convenience to white people.

I mean a story like Squid Game isn’t solely exclusive to Korea; despair, poverty, desperation, violence and empathy can be told in any nationality, so I’m sure Squid Game can easily be picked up by any other culture, even if it’s not white people, but it’s just the fact that white people are clearly so eager to white up the property, that they can’t even wait until the flowers for OG Squid Game to stop coming in before they shoe horn their own introduction into the ending of the finale, and set the stage for their impending colonization.

I digress though.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that bullshit, and even if the Squid Game creators resisted a white spinoff, white people would just inevitably just rip it off and release something on their own in the future anyway, so might as well have the Korean creators get the bag in the process of having their shit stolen.

It’s just obnoxious how often and how quickly Korean successes become marked for white people-ization, and as much as I loved Squid Game and the cultural phenomenon it became, it irked me to see just how fast white people had to inject their sniveling little tentacles into the property, and sour the general ending for me.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: We’ve finally got some Ivies

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ABC30: Fresno teen accepted into 15 different schools, including four Ivy League schools

This story is really succinct and lacks a tremendous amount of context, and I can’t seem to find any more information on it, but whatever.  I’ve got our first Ivy League #TRYHARD, as he didn’t get into all of the Ivies like some of the most mega of #TRYHARDs do, but still getting into four of them is still warranting of #TRYHARD status.

Most importantly, he got into Harvard and Yale, which coming from the child of Asian parents, it doesn’t matter if there are actually schools out there better than either of these, Harvard and Yale are the absolute cream of the crop when it comes to college educations, and seeing as how this #TRYHARD is Hispanic, I don’t imagine his parents’ perceptions of college is probably that far off from immigrant Asians.

Overall, 15 schools doesn’t sound like he was trying hard enough, in comparison to the #TRYHARDs he’s unknowingly going up against in the arena of my brog, but since he’s not black, that clearly wipes out all the HBCUs, despite the fact that non-black students can attend them from what I understand.

Additionally, no context of scholarship dollars were mentioned, but I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise considering this one is dealing with Ivy League schools, whom seem to probably think adequate compensation is simply being allowed entry onto their lily white grounds, and that if this #TRYHARD actually wants to attend Harvard or Yale, better be prepared to pony up the $65K a be able to attend, although I heard that Harvard is offering free education to those who can get in, if their family doesn’t make a certain amount.

Either way, I got nothing else, because the story of this #TRYHARD is short and straight to the point of glamorizing the fact that he got into multiple Ivies.  He’ll still be easily defeated by the inevitable kid who will have been accepted into all the Ivies, but for now I’m just glad to find a #TRYHARD to be from outside of Georgia as well as have some Ivy League schools on his resume.